“He opens his eyes and stares directly into the morning sun which wallows up from the misty sea like some bloated, dying fish. The sky is gray and immobile, a dome of lead. A cloud hangs mute and dark over the western horizon. High up, barely visible, a seagull floats on motionless wings. Its cry is weird and restless.”
– Ingmar Bergman, The Seventh Seal

“I had forgotten that time wasn’t fixed like concrete but in fact was fluid as sand, or water. I had forgotten that even misery can end. ”
– Joyce Carol Oates, I Am No One You Know

“Soon it got dusk, a grapy dusk, a purple dusk over tangerine groves and long melon fields; the sun the color of pressed grapes, slashed with burgundy red, the fields the color of love and Spanish mysteries.”
– Jack Kerouac, On the Road

“I was a man who thrived on solitude… I took no pride in my solitude; but I was dependent on it. The darkness of the room was like sunlight to me.”
– Charles Bukowski, Factotum“If you don’t become the ocean, you’ll be seasick every day.”
– Leonard Cohen“The most painful state of being is remembering the future, particularly the one you’ll never have.”
– Søren Kierkegaard

(Some feeble footage above of some hunting bull-shark chums of mine as they spilled up into the shallow swash as the tide began to recede. Is there anything better than having a shark swim up into one’s lap? I think not!)

I had a meeting with the Sharks that Sunrise, and they kept their promise. I arrived to the bruised sight of a brooding squall that aged the sky, scudding in and consuming the Dawn.

Pale rosy lightning sniveled across the slate blue of cloud as a lone dolphin breached cold in the distance.

And there in the swash the pastel waves frilled and shivered as a cool wind lumbered forth, and a surge of fish spat out from the sea as the Sharks surfed right up to my feet.

The Surf Fisherman decided not to wade in. I know not why. The water was glorious.

“What is a scientist after all? It is a curious man looking through a keyhole, the keyhole of nature, trying to know what’s going on.”
― Jacques-Yves Cousteau

“For most of history, man has had to fight nature to survive; in this century he is beginning to realize that, in order to survive, he must protect it.”
― Jacques-Yves Cousteau“The future is in the hands of those who explore… and from all the beauty they discover while crossing perpetually receding frontiers, they develop for nature and for humankind an infinite love.”
― Jacques-Yves Cousteau

“Above us flying fish gamboled, adding a discordant touch of gaiety to what was becoming a tragedy for us. Dumas and I ransacked our memories for advice on how to frighten off sharks. ‘Gesticulate wildly,’ said a lifeguard. We flailed our arms. The gray (shark) did not falter. ‘Give ’em a flood of bubbles,’ said a helmet diver. Dumas waited until the shark had reached his nearest point and released a heavy exhalation. The shark did not react. ‘Shout as loud as you can,’ said Hans Hass. We hooted until our voices cracked. The shark appeared deaf. ‘Cupric acetate tablets fastened to leg and belt will keep sharks away if you go into the drink,’ said the Air Force briefing officer. Our friend swam through the copper-stained water without a wink. His cold, tranquil eye appraised us. He seemed to know what he wanted, and he was in no hurry.”
– Excerpt from the book, “The Silent World” by Jacques Cousteau

Ashy taste of mildewed Wind, heady and warm, off brush-metal waves- sticking to thoughts– it cursitates, Neurons itching, tickled by the bleary chiming of a Rain-Pattered Sea.

The chink-metal ocean tastes of sodden rust, spume sputtering about the shoulders- these eyes– a lunging Black, as dark as wetsuit skin.

Lambent gaze scrapes the clouds; dark spindly form punctures the sky- fiberglass toes- white and sharp, like bone- and the sound of water drips like snow.

Comes the deluge, the swimming grey swarm of oblivion, drowning in a surge of metal- the colour of December’s somber death- the scent of it tingles in curled and gnarly fingers, burrowing in sand.

The balmy breath of it dissolves and settles upon these meandering splinters of thought that scuttle into the fizzy-green brine and are stolen by the evening tide, stifled by the sweeping sounds of the Seagull’s Drawl and the strumming song of a Rain-Pattered Sea.